Propapalooza, week 8 (2024 week 37)

We're right around the middle of the props in this mega theme which is otherwise absolutely pumping my finished mini counter. I'm not going to feel guilty in any way about this--they needed paint! Today we have "things at an inn & tavern" and for reasons I don't fully understand, this one didn't publish despite being set so we have done so from the future!

First up we have four beds. Spoiler: there may be mimic version of these in the future. They're drybrushed, contrast-painted, and have very minimal drybrushing for highlights. The only really interesting thing going on here is the floors they're glued to. These are played by magnet stickers stuck to coffee sticks that were painted prior to glueing. There's a lousy curl on the magnet sticker that I couldn't 100% fix. 

These four are gooseneck stills. I was somewhat surprised to find that there were only two nozzles available across the four stills. I don't remember the sprues being different. Also possible I just plain missed them. The ones with the spigots were five (!) pieces! I stuck them to bases because they were slightly bigger than the magnets that I would have otherwise glued them to. And yes, they really did (do?) make stills out of copper. 

 

These two are hopefully obviously casks of some sort and I'm going to say that they're Dwarven casks since they have beardy runes on one side.These were also in far too many pieces and they were glued to the same magnet stickers as the beds. Like a lot of these, they're simply painted and look IMO, pretty good--high drama, low effort.

These guys are only arguably tavern-y things but I wasn't sure where else to put them. We've got two scroll piles, two book piles, and two taxidermied lectern beasts. Those poor, sad lectern beasts. The books are probably the ones I'm least happy with since I did almost no work on them. The yellow is pretty clearly a speed paint while the others are pretty clearly not. Overall they look painted. The lecterns sucked up the most time since they have the most details. Luckly the sculptor left some indented lettering so I didn't have to freehand that in.

 

2024 finished mini counter: 247/208

Propapalooza, week 7 (2024 week 36)

...and if you guessed more props this week then you're in luck! And in fact, we're continuing our "mining stuff" from last week.

First up we have four lanterns and three globey-pedestal-y things which aren't really mining relating at all. Three of the lanterns were painted at once and the darker one was painted all on its own which is why it looks so different. These were mainly speed paint with some washes and I note that I don't super like the golden speed paint that I used here. The lantern-y glow was basically a yellow speed paint over the white drybrush--about as low rent a solution as possible. The pedestals are different colors in case I ever need to use them in a puzzle which is likely.

 

Next up we have two big miner skulls, two pickaxes with stone piles and four boxes of dynamite. No clue what race the miner skulls are from--they're super big and lack tusks/horns/anything otherwise identifying. The dynamite boxes are also difficult for me since my fantasy world has no non-magical explosives. They're color coded for the same reasons the pedestals are.

2024 finished mini counter: 231/208

Propapalooza, week 6 (2024 week 35)

More props this week loosely gathered under "mining stuff" for better or worse and kicking off with broken half-walls. These are pretty thin and defied proper magnetization. Also, since they're so thin, they almost never stand properly. If I were smarter, I'd have glued them to actual bases and put some texture on them and all that but I clearly didn't. That doesn't mean I won't in the future, but that's a Future Me Problem (TM).

Next up we have some very dwarfy minecarts and shovels in piles of rocks. At the time of this writing, I've been revisiting Dwarf Fortress so these feel more familiar than they probably should. I painted the two shovel vignettes at different times and their very contrasting paint jobs really show that. Probably the one on the right is too dark.  Probably the minecarts could use some better highlights.

Next up we have a couple skulls with axes in them and boulder-squashy skeletons. You know, as you do. I have to think that if you have an axe and find a skull, there's a very short timer that goes off before you want to stick one into the other. None of these are quality paint jobs (obviously) but they are all painted. I rather expect the squashy skeletons to get more screen time than the axe skulls. I'll let you know.

 

Last up we have a couple wheel barrows, a tool that I desperately need in real life. This time they were painted at the same time but I wanted to vary the color so they got different contrast paint basecoats. Also note the extreme laziness on the bases which are only painted green. I couldn't be arsed to flock them. 

2024 finished mini counter: 216/208